The Libby Case

(Reprinted from the issue of March 22, 2007)

The
Scooter Libby trial has finally ended, compounding the confusion of the whole
case, as the jurors in effect repudiated their own verdict of (mostly) guilty.
Yes, the trial ended, but not the controversy.

Maybe the simplest
way to get our bearings is to note that as soon as the verdict was
announced, the neoconservatives were unanimously demanding an instant
presidential pardon for Libby; though President Bush seemed indisposed to
oblige them, presumably because a pardon would create the impression that
his administration itself had been convicted, especially Libbys
friend-patron-former boss, Vice President Dick Cheney, the most powerful and
distrusted vice president in American history.

The neocons insisted
that Libby had done nothing illegal or unethical, or even unusual, but they
were protesting a bit too much. They evidently reckoned that the whole case
was bad for the War Party; and so it was. There was something obviously
malodorous about the way Cheney and Libby had schemed to discredit critics
of the Iraq war at its hatching, especially Joseph Wilson, the former
ambassador, by outing his wife Valerie Plame as a CIA agent of sorts.

It was doubtful, as
the neocons said, that Libby had done anything substantially criminal, but if
not terribly guilty, he didnt exactly seem innocent, either. One more
tempest in the enormous teapot that is the Beltway; maybe in a year it will
make some sense, but I doubt that it will matter. At any rate, the outcome
was hardly a public vindication for Cheney. It seemed more like curtains.
Republican Winners?

Conservative disgust with the polygamous
collectivist GOP presidential hopefuls is bearing some positive fruit: The
most honorable member of the House, Ron Paul of Texas, is in the race now,
and the admirable Sen. Chuck Hagel of Nebraska is talking about getting in
later. Both men are principled conservatives who have little chance of
getting the nomination, but their opposition to the Iraq war and their high
character would make either of them tough for any Democrat to beat next
year.

Despite their salient
handicap  penury  I wouldnt count them out. Both are
men who command respect across party and ideological lines, and the
current front-runner (and neocon darling), Rudy Giuliani, a liberal pro-abortion
pander who is now trying to pander to pro-lifers, has a much more severe
handicap: Lots of conservatives wouldnt bother voting for him, just
as many Democrats wouldnt bother turning out for Hillary.

George Will, who has
virtually endorsed Giuliani, dismisses Paul as a useful
anachronism  that is, a conservative who takes the U.S.
Constitution seriously. Imagine that!

Paul and Hagel are
men who would tempt even me to vote. The most encouraging fact in recent
politics, in my opinion, is the rise of conservative qualms about the Iraq war.
Since the end of the Cold War, thanks in large part to two Popes, not to
mention Patrick Buchanan, to be an American conservative is no longer
necessarily to be a hawk.

The Bush-Rove-Cheney
Republicans didnt see this coming. Theyve gone on
assuming that appeals to patriotism and veiled charges of treason would
keep their presumed followers in line. But a few months ago, Bill Buckley
broke ranks on the war and noted that in a parliamentary system, Bush
would have been thrown out of office by now. It wasnt front-page
news, but it was a symptom of an important change.

A new realignment is
under way. As Hagel says, This movement is bigger than both
parties.
Mrs. Noah

I am now working on an introduction to five
plays of Shakespeare for high school students. But what sounded like an
easy task at first is turning out to be a labor of Hercules.

Why? Because every
page or two of Shakespeare has a scriptural reference, and one simply
cannot take for granted that todays youth have even the most
rudimentary knowledge of the Bible. And it isnt just young people. Nor
is it just the Bible.

America is said to be
a religious country, predominantly Christian, in which atheists and agnostics
are exceptional and most people profess belief in God, Jesus Christ, and
Scripture. Darwinism and homosexual marriage face strong
popular opposition.

But for all this lip
service to piety, Stephen Prothero of Boston University, in his new book
Religious Literacy: What Every American Needs to Know  And
Doesnt (just published by HarperSanFrancisco), notes that Americans
are shockingly, and I do mean shockingly, ignorant of religion in general and
the Bible in particular. Fewer than half can name the first book of the Old
Testament, or even one of the four Gospels, and similar numbers
dont know who gave the Sermon on the Mount (many ascribe it to
Martin Luther King). Most cant name the worlds five major
religions, and 15% cant name even one of them.

Its not only
sad but often downright hilarious: One in ten thinks Joan of Arc was
Noahs wife. Well, I guess we dont have to worry about being
overrun by fundamentalists! But even atheists should be appalled and
alarmed by the disastrous enfeeblement of the basis of Western culture,
just as we would be shocked if readers could no longer recognize the names
of Homers and Virgils pagan gods. How would Christians gain
if people forgot who Zeus/Jupiter, Ares/Mars, and Aphrodite/Venus were?
Even unbelievers should know what it is they dont believe in.

Shakespeare could
assume that even illiterate members of his largely illiterate audience would
be familiar with many names, stories, and verses of the Bible. Until recently,
American authors could assume that their readers knew the Bible pretty well
too; when Ernest Hemingway titled a novel The Sun Also Rises it was needless
to explain that he was quoting Ecclesiastes. Everyone in 1926 knew it. And it
is simply a cultural fact that collections of sermons used to be best-selling
books. Ben-Hur, a fictional spinoff of the Gospels, was
enormously popular both as a novel by Lew Wallace and (twice) as an epic
motion picture (silent and with sound).

Such is the impact of
so-called popular culture on the older, literate culture. No, its even
worse than that. People of my generation used to be able to allude to films
like Casablanca (Play it, Sam; Round up the usual
suspects; I am shocked, shocked) the way our elders
could quote the Bible; but todays kids dont even know the
classic black-and-white movies.

Talk about decline!
Decline? Its a cultural tailspin. Ive often observed that
weve gone from teaching Latin and Greek in high school a century ago
to teaching remedial English in college today; but where will it end? Will
Harvard soon be offering doctorates in remedial English? Im afraid to
guess anymore.

I was both shocked
and amazed at the worldwide success of Dan Browns absurd
bestseller The Da Vinci Code. I shouldnt have been. Protheros
book explains that a huge, ignorant readership was just waiting for a Brown.



The
Lords Prayer seems to me to prove, by itself, the divinity of its
author. Regime Change Begins at Home  a new selection of my
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